WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — A former college softball player fatally shot while driving in eastern Iowa will be memorialized today (Friday) at a funeral Mass in her Kansas hometown. Micalla Alexis Rettinger was shot early Sunday morning as she drove over a wooded area along the Cedar River in Waterloo.

(Photo provided by the University Of Northern Iowa Athletic Department via AP)

The 25-year-old former University of Northern Iowa softball player pulled over along U.S. Highway 218 and died. The bullet also struck one of her passengers: her 32-year-old boyfriend, Adam Kimball. He was hospitalized and the bullet was recovered.

At least $58,000 has been offered as a reward for information leading to an arrest. The Mass is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. today (Friday) at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa, Kansas. She had been living in Waterloo since graduating in 2016 from the university.

A man from Nebraska died late Thursday night during a single-vehicle rollover accident south of Williams, in northern Iowa’s Hamilton County. The Iowa State Patrol reports 41-year old Justin Daniel Meyering, of Lincoln, NE., was eluding law enforcement during a pursuit while driving a 2003 Ford Mustang. The car – which was traveling at a high rate of speed -failed to negotiate a curve and rolled over. Meyering, who was wearing a seatbelt, died at the scene. The accident happened at around 11:30-p.m. at 220th Street and Vail Avenue.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed into law a bill that makes it a crime to claim a pet is a service animal if the animal owner doesn’t have a disability and hasn’t demonstrated a need for a service animal. The new law also requires landlords to allow individuals with a disability to have service animals but it also requires the person to provide proof they are disabled and need the animal. Denying a disabled person an animal is a simple misdemeanor but a person intentionally lying that their animal is a service animal when it isn’t also is a misdemeanor.

The bill also alleviates any liability for property owners for injury or damage caused by a service animal. It was supported by the groups representing grocers, restaurants, retailers and landlords. Disability Rights Iowa opposed it fearing store or restaurant employees may call the police on individuals with service animals but no visible disabilities such as those with post-traumatic stress disorder or diabetes.

An SUV rear-ended a semi tractor-trailer in Pottawattamie County, Thursday evening, resulting in an Audubon County woman being flown to a hospital in Omaha. The Iowa State Patrol reports Interstate 80 eastbound traffic was stop-and-go in a construction zone. A 2018 Volvo semi driven by 64-year old Lyle Hass, of Iowa City, was almost at a complete stop in the right lane near mile marker 41.8, when for reasons unknown, the semi was hit from behind by a 2017 Jeep Cherokee.

The SUV, driven by 48-year old Jolene Hasbrouck, of Audubon, went into the south ditch, following the collision. Hasbrouck was flown by LifeNet helicopter to Bergan-Mercy Hospital in Omaha. Authorities say she was wearing a seat belt.

The accident, which took place at around 6:30-p.m., remains under investigation.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:45 a.m. CDT

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A judge has sentenced an influential youth basketball coach to an effective lifetime prison sentence for secretly collecting sexual images of 440 boys and fondling more than a dozen over a 20-year period. U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams sentenced former Iowa Barnstormers coach Greg Stephen to 180 years in federal prison. Williams called Stephen’s crimes horrendous, saying he abused his position of trust to prey upon boys who saw Stephen as a gateway to college basketball.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska has secured another win in its fight with Iowa and Nebraska to keep its newly opened casino in western Iowa. The National Indian Gaming Commission ruled in the tribe’s favor Wednesday, saying it has the right to operate the Prairie Flower Casino on land it acquired in Carter Lake, Iowa. Nebraska, Iowa and the neighboring city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, sued to close the casino, saying the tribe had misrepresented its plans for the site.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed into law a bill that makes it a crime to claim pet is a service animal in order to take it into a store or a restaurant. The new law also requires landlords to allow individuals with a disability to have service animals but it also requires the person to provide proof they are disabled and need an animal. Denying a disabled person an animal is a simple misdemeanor but intentionally lying that an animal is a service animal when it isn’t also is a misdemeanor.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Mississippi River at the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois has reached a new record high. The National Weather Service website on Thursday afternoon showed the river level at 22.64 feet (6.9 meters), just above the 22.63-foot mark reached on July 9, 1993. Parts of downtown Davenport, Iowa, remain underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier. Several Mississippi River towns also are seeing floods that are closing in on levels reached in 1993.

(Radio Iowa) — A new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives Iowa infrastructure a “mediocre” but passing grade — and suggests raising taxes to improve water quality and finance improvements to bridges, airports and other critical infrastructure. Joshua Trygstad, a civil engineer at a consulting firm in Grimes, is president of the society’s Iowa section.

“Infrastructure is the foundation of everyday lives,” he says. “It impacts all parts of how we live, work and play in Iowa.” Christy VanBuskirk, an engineer from Hedrick, was chair of the group that evaluated 12 different forms of infrastructure and came up with the grades. “In 2019, Iowa receives an overall grade of C,” she says. “That is an improvement from the 2015 grade when infrastructure in our state received a C-minus. We’ve made progress in some areas, but we still have a lot of work to do overall.”

The engineers noted many levees in urban areas have been improved over the past decade, but it’s been difficult to get grants to improve levees in rural areas. Aaron Moniza, a civil engineer from Cedar Rapids, says reliable funding for new levee construction as well as improvements to existing systems are essential.  “In many locations, for each dollar spent on flood mitigation in advance of a flood event, multiple dollars are saved that otherwise would be spent on flood recovery efforts,” Moniza says. “Additional study on flood plain hydraulics is also needed to assess the impacts of climate change and infrastructure activities affecting run-off rates and stormwater volumes.”

The group also suggests the standards for designing and inspecting levees should be uniform throughout the country. The lowest grade — a “D” — went to the more than four-thousand dams on Iowa rivers and streams. The engineers warn the frequency and severity of flooding means MORE “emergency action plans” must be prepared to deal with the failure of dams, including the locks and dams on the Mississippi River.

The group supports raising the state sales tax to help finance water quality improvements and the civil engineers suggest the state’s gas tax should regularly increase at the rate of inflation.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Mississippi River at the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois has reached a new record high. The National Weather Service website on Thursday afternoon showed the river level at 22.64 feet, just above the 22.63-foot mark reached on July 9, 1993. Parts of downtown Davenport remain underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier.

Several Mississippi River towns also are seeing floods that are closing in on levels reached in 1993, the benchmark flood for many areas of the Midwest. Two Mississippi River bridges — one at Quincy, Illinois, and another at Louisiana, Missouri — have been forced to close.

In West Alton, Missouri, 20 miles north of St. Louis, the 500 or so residents were under a voluntary evacuation as the river was expected to crest a half-foot higher than the levee can hold. Officials say the levee is so long that sandbagging isn’t an option.

(Radio Iowa) — A study of some 15 years of data on mosquitoes in Iowa finds you are most likely to contract the West Nile virus from the pests buzzing around the western side of the state. Iowa State University entomologist, Ryan Smith, says the research is the first time they’ve been able to get an idea of the pattern of West Nile transmission. “Those counties in the western region of the state seemed to be at much higher risk. And at least one of the other major conclusions from our study is that that also seems to correlate with the presence of a certain mosquito — Culex tarsalis (cue-lix tar-sal-is) — which is also found predominantly in that region,” Smith says.

Smith says the research indicates the ecology of the western counties is a big factor. “This species really kind of likes more kind of farmland area — especially that that is irrigated farmland. It really thrives in those little ditches and runoff that you might have associated with these areas,” according to Smith. “This Culex tarsalis isn’t really found in your kind of more urbanized areas. So, there is a big distinction that Culex tarsalis is usually found in these more rural areas,” he says. The I-S-U Medical Entomology Laboratory conducts yearly surveillance of mosquito populations, using a network of traps across the state that are regularly emptied and the mosquitoes inside are catalogued. Smith says they reviewed the Iowa data from between 2002 and 2016.

He says the study mirrors those from Nebraska and South Dakota with this mosquito on West Nile transmission an he says it continues all the way to California.”You can almost draw a line kind of through the middle of Iowa, and everything to the left of is where you can find this one — and everything to the right is where you wouldn’t expect it,” Smith says. But Smith cautions that this does not mean you can’t get the West Nile virus from other mosquitoes in the state. “This mosquito seems to be a little bit better at transmitting West Nile virus — but it doesn’t mean that other mosquitoes that we have throughout the state aren’t also involved,” according to Smith. “So, there are several different mosquito species that can transmit West Nile, and we do find those throughout Iowa. So, our study doesn’t say that they are not involved — it just says the one that is most likely involved in human case is this Culex tarsalis mosquito.”

Smith says you should follow the state Health Department recommendations and use a mosquito repellent with DEET and cover up exposed areas when you are going to be out at times when any mosquitoes might be active. Smith says the research answers some of the questions about West Nile transmission, but there are other questions, such as the impact of weather. “We’re starting to understand how some of these factors influence it, but even 15 years of data isn’t fully enough I don’t think to really understand what is going on.
There’s no doubt that weather patterns definitely have an impact on our mosquitoes and on transmission,” Smith says.

Iowa had 103 cases of the West Nile virus in 2018, with five deaths. The Department of Public Health says people who are infected with West Nile may not experience any signs or symptoms. Some people experience minor symptoms like fever and mild headache. Others, however, can develop a life-threatening illness that includes inflammation of the brain.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska has secured another legal win to keep its new casino in western Iowa open, despite the best efforts of the states of Iowa and Nebraska.
The National Indian Gaming Commission ruled Wednesday in the tribe’s favor, saying it has the right to operate the Prairie Flower Casino on land it acquired in Carter Lake, Iowa.

While the casino is technically in Iowa, it lies west of the Missouri River, essentially in the heart of Omaha. The neighboring city of Council Bluffs, Iowa — which already hosts three state-licensed casinos — and the states of Iowa and Nebraska sued to shut the Prairie Flower down.

The lawsuit says the tribe misrepresented its intentions by initially announcing plans for a health center on the Carter Lake lot.

The Des Moines Register reports 21 Iowa high schools appear in the top third of U.S. News and World Report’s 2019 national rankings. Ten schools ranked in the top 2,000 schools in the country and 11 more ranked within the top 3,000. The Atlantic High School ranks 34th in Iowa, and is the highest ranked high school in the Hawkeye-10 public schools (Harlan 51, Glenwood 91, Shenandoah 99, Clarinda 103, Denison 125, Creston 130, Lewis Central 132, Red Oak 216-319).

The rankings are made up of the top 12,245 high schools in the country. Each school is ranked by a weighted mix of five factors: college readiness, math and reading proficiency, math and reading performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rate. (read more here: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/search?ranked=true&state-urlname=iowa )